The LORD will open the heavens...

I am blessed. Beyond measure. Surrounded by favor and abundance.
After persevering for over a month in searching for jobs, God has been generous and opened the way for me. He has given me favor in the eyes of men and women. I now have a babysitting job starting up as soon as a gentleman from England comes here with his two infant girls for a month during a business trip. I now have a job as a tutor at Sylvan Learning Center. I have two interviews for other jobs for when the baby sitting job ends. I am so grateful and in my gratefulness I have begun to reflect on the phrase "the heavens have opened up."
Now this is my paraphrase of a phrase that is actually in the bible several times. This is how I feel right now. This, I believe, is the spiritual truth of my current condition. Pondering what the bible actually says about this phrase, I searched for it on biblegateway.com. This is the verse that immediately stood out to me...

Deuteronomy 28:1-14
Blessings for Obedience
 ¹ If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. ² All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:  ³ You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
 ⁴ The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
 ⁵ Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.
 ⁶ You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.
 ⁷ The LORD will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.
 ⁸ The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.
 ⁹ The LORD will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways. ¹⁰ Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will fear you. ¹¹ The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to your forefathers to give you.
 ¹² The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. ¹³ The LORD will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. ¹⁴ Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.

When I read this passage several things come to mind...
 First, I think that perhaps I am walking into a season of blessing as I have never seen before. In truth, I have never felt so throughly and overwhelmingly blessed by so many "coincidences" from the hand of God all at once. I have previously felt many profound blessings, BIG changes, small happenings - but they seemed to have been here and there or one event would answer a few prayers together - but this, what I am going through right now, is something different. I feel like I have had many answers to a few really big prayers. So many interviews, so many job offers, so many options, so many things just taken care of in the face of much trouble. I did not just get a cup of water handed to me so I could continue persevering. I feel like someone opened a shower above my head and the rush that came out was strong enough to sweep me off my feet so I was left with no options but to bow to the Father in gratitude for the end of the drought. I was not at any point able to look at all of this as luck or chance or coincidence. It has been all by the grace of the Father and his generous heart. I asked for a fish and he gave me a feast.
Second, my eyes travel to the opening and closing conditions for all this blessing to be able to happen in the life of God's children. "If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands..." Now I don't know about you, but this almost makes me squeamish inside as I think, "Uh-oh!" As it says in the Word, "all fall short of the glory of God." I am part of that "all." I truly have no hope of fully obeying the LORD my God or carefully following all his commands. But following on the heels of that sqeamishness (which I don't think is from God) is the truth that Jesus Christ came to fullfill the law. Jesus Christ came to form a new covenant, not one to replace the old, but to bring it to completion. That means that the truth of God's Word in the Old Testament are still truth, but you need to look at them completely in conjunction with the New Testament's Good News.

Hebrews 9:11-15
 ¹¹When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here,^[b] he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. ¹²He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. ¹³The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. ¹⁴How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,^[c] so that we may serve the living God!
 ¹⁵For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

Because of the new covenant, my obedience to God is made perfect through the death of Jesus Christ. Now when God looks at me, He sees me clean, and perfect for the sake of His beloved Son. The requirements of the old covenant are made new. I could now replace those words with: If you believe in Jesus Christ, Son of God and Savior of the World, "the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. ² All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:..."
Don't you see? All these things belong to you and are the inheritance of Christ which he pours out in love on those who love him.


Thank You Lord again for Your Son. For Your promises fulfilled and Your generous heart. Thank You that You are a Good Father who knows how to give good gifts and chooses in His abundant mercy to share with those You now call family for the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ.